Cash converters: how marketers turn investor fundraising into growth

Elodie Fer­chaud has been with Bound­less Life for ­lit­tle more than three months, but she has gained a wealth of fundrais­ing expe­ri­ence in that time. When she joined the Mon­tre­al-based start­up to become its most senior mar­keter, it had ­recent­ly obtained £1.75m in seed fund­ing. The com­pa­ny has since embarked on a series‑A round.

Fer­chaud is head of demand ­gen­er­a­tion at the firm, which spe­cialis­es in pro­vid­ing medi­um-term accom­mo­da­tion, co-work­ing space and edu­ca­tion ser­vices for dig­i­tal nomads with chil­dren in tow. The French­woman has worked in sev­eral coun­tries her­self, includ­ing Switzer­land, Swe­den and Japan dur­ing a nine-year stint with Proc­ter & Gam­ble. Today she is based in the his­toric Por­tuguese town of Sin­tra, where Bound­less Life is devel­op­ing a com­mu­ni­ty for trav­el­ling fam­i­lies.

“Mar­ket­ing is a lot about defin­ing what we’re sell­ing and the cus­tomer require­ments we’re answer­ing, so care­ful atten­tion has been paid to build­ing our prod­uct and telling our sto­ry,” Fer­chaud says. “There are many steps in a fundrais­ing cam­paign that are close to what mar­ket­ing does dai­ly. In this case, it’s about help­ing the founders to deter­mine who the right investors are – those that believe in our prod­uct and will help us on the way – as well as per­son­al­is­ing our out­reach and track­ing those efforts.”

Bound­less Life has yet to close its series‑A round, but it is already plan­ning a crowd­fund­ing cam­paign on the Repub­lic plat­form. It hopes to attract rel­a­tive­ly small ­invest­ments from keen nomads who can serve as brand ambas­sadors.

“We believe that we’ll find many active sup­port­ers through crowd­fund­ing,” Fer­chaud says. “This will raise mon­ey while also spread­ing aware­ness of our prod­uct, which is fun­da­men­tal. It will be a great way to find more like-mind­ed fam­i­lies.”

The attribution equation

While this approach sounds like it should be an easy win, Fer­chaud knows that the hard work is far from over. Two tasks in par­tic­u­lar – build­ing an attri­bu­tion mod­el to track the suc­cess of cus­tomer-­ac­qui­si­tion activ­i­ties and build­ing a high­ly tech-savvy team to detect and exploit new oppor­tu­ni­ties – have been keep­ing her both busy and account­able.

“Devel­op­ing the right attri­bu­tion mod­el is crit­i­cal,” she says. “This is about mak­ing assump­tions as to where your growth will come from, which is what you present to investors. The mod­el will help you to iden­ti­fy the best levers for growth, so that you can move away from any that aren’t work­ing and dou­ble down on those that are.”

Indeed, build­ing an attri­bu­tion mod­el is where much of the heavy lift­ing in mar­ket­ing occurs after an invest­ment round. That’s especi­ally true in Bound­less Life’s case, ­because a customer’s typ­i­cal jour­ney from learn­ing about the firm’s offer­ing to mak­ing a pur­chas­ing deci­sion is lengthy.

“Peo­ple do need time to get acquaint­ed with our prod­uct and trust it. It’s also not that easy for them to under­stand each step along the way. That’s why build­ing an attri­bu­tion mod­el is com­plex in this con­text,” Fer­chaud says. “But the pres­sure to deliv­er on the tar­gets that have been set is heavy.”

Under pressure

Mar­ius Nedel­cu, chief mar­ket­ing offi­cer at Trans­fer­Go, agrees that the mar­ket­ing func­tion is the first to feel the weight of expec­ta­tion after a big injec­tion of cap­i­tal. He joined the mon­ey-trans­fer plat­form in July 2016, just after the Lon­don-based firm had announced a £3m series‑A fund­ing round. He’s since helped the busi­ness through two fur­ther rounds totalling £62m.

“Mar­ket­ing can work faster than oth­er depart­ments, so that’s why it always gets the pres­sure first,” Nedel­cu observes. “The prod­uct team, for instance, will take time to use the mon­ey, so every­one turns to mar­ket­ing and says: ‘Can you show some growth?’ Straight away, I had to pre­pare a plan and spend my bud­get to bring in cus­tomers.”

A year on from TransferGo’s most recent fundrais­ing round, the task of keep­ing promis­es to investors has defined how the mar­ket­ing team works. It’s become high­ly ­data-dri­ven – some­thing of a dep­arture for Nedel­cu, who pre­vi­ous­ly focused on brand-build­ing in the health and fit­ness sec­tor.

He admits that the vol­ume of data his team had to process ini­tial­ly felt over­whelm­ing, but he has since become a con­vert, hav­ing learnt a lot from the insights he’s gained from the process. Big TV cam­paigns, for instance, are not a pri­or­i­ty, as Trans­fer­Go has found that these are rel­a­tive­ly inef­fi­cient ways for it to reach poten­tial cus­tomers.

“You have to show that you’re spend­ing wise­ly and not just bring­ing in traf­fic that doesn’t con­vert into any­thing,” Nedel­cu stress­es. “Our focus for the past two years has been on ensur­ing that the peo­ple we bring to our door are poten­tial cus­tomers: migrants who need to trans­fer mon­ey inter­na­tion­al­ly.”

A broader base

Team-build­ing is anoth­er area in which Nedel­cu and Fer­chaud have had sim­i­lar expe­ri­ences. Both have felt the pres­sure to strength­en their depart­ments after a big invest­ment, but Fer­chaud would advise mar­keters in a sim­i­lar posi­tion not to be hasty when recruit­ing.

“There is pres­sure, but every­one who’s hired fast also learns the hard way that, if your gut tells you that a can­di­date might not be right, it’s worth push­ing back against it,” she argues. “If you make a mis­take here, it could have an impact on every­one in the organ­i­sa­tion and hin­der the firm’s growth.”

Nedel­cu also rec­om­mends that senior mar­keters brush up on their lead­er­ship skills so that they can keep their teams moti­vat­ed even if the busi­ness hits a rough patch.

“Oth­er­wise, they will crack under pres­sure,” he warns. “But, if you’re a great leader, they’ll fol­low you and bring their best to the table even dur­ing chal­leng­ing times. That’s what I am work­ing on dai­ly.”